Battle of Asculum (279 BC): The Original Pyrrhic Victory

The Battle of Asculum was fought in 279 BC near Ausculum in Apulia, southern Italy, between King Pyrrhus of Epirus and a Roman army led by the consuls Publius Decius Mus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio. Pyrrhus won, but at such a heavy cost in experienced soldiers that his name entered the language: a “Pyrrhic victory” is one that ruins the winner. The battle was the second of Pyrrhus’s great clashes with Rome in the Pyrrhic War.

Background

In 282 BC the Greek city of Tarentum (modern Taranto) fell out with Rome, whose power was spreading into southern Italy. Tarentum asked Pyrrhus, a second cousin of Alexander the Great and one of the most admired generals of the Hellenistic age, for help. He landed in Italy in 280 BC with roughly 25,000 men and 20 war elephants.

That summer Pyrrhus defeated the consul Publius Valerius Laevinus at Heraclea, helped by the shock of the elephants, which most Romans had never seen. He then sent his adviser Cineas to Rome to offer peace. According to tradition the aged senator Appius Claudius Caecus persuaded the Senate to refuse while a foreign army stood on Italian soil. Pyrrhus prepared to fight again the next year.

The armies

Both sides fielded large armies, but the ancient figures are unreliable. Modern historians usually suggest something like 35,000 to 40,000 men on each side. Pyrrhus combined his own Macedonian-style phalanx of long-pike infantry with Tarentines, Samnites, Lucanians and Bruttians, cavalry and his surviving elephants.

The Romans had four legions and an equal number of Italian allies. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says they also brought about 300 wagons fitted with spikes, long poles and fire-pots, designed specifically to stop the elephants.

What happened

Our two main accounts differ. Plutarch, using the eyewitness-based history of Hieronymus of Cardia, describes a two-day battle. On the first day Pyrrhus was forced to fight on broken, wooded ground near a river, where his phalanx and elephants could not work well, and the fighting ended without a decision.

On the second day Pyrrhus first occupied the difficult ground with light troops and drew the Romans onto open, level terrain. The legions attacked the phalanx fiercely, trying to cut through or push aside the pikes with their swords. Eventually Pyrrhus sent in his elephants at the point where the Roman line was weakest, and the Romans fell back to their fortified camp, which was close by. Pyrrhus himself was wounded in the arm by a javelin.

Dionysius gives a different picture of a single long day, with confused fighting across the whole line, a raid by Apulian allies of Rome on Pyrrhus’s camp, and the anti-elephant wagons overrun by Pyrrhus’s archers and slingers. Both accounts agree that Pyrrhus held the field and the Romans withdrew.

Losses and the famous remark

Plutarch reports that about 6,000 Romans died, while Pyrrhus’s own campaign records listed 3,505 dead on his side. Those losses fell heavily on the officers and veterans he had brought from Greece, men he could not easily replace so far from home. Rome, by contrast, could raise new legions from its large network of citizens and allies.

Plutarch then records the remark that made Pyrrhus famous. When someone congratulated him, he is said to have replied that if they won one more battle against the Romans they would be utterly ruined. The phrase “Pyrrhic victory” grew out of this story, which ancient writers repeated widely.

The fate of the consul Decius Mus is uncertain. His father and grandfather were said to have sacrificed themselves in battle through a ritual called devotio. Some ancient sources say he did the same at Asculum, while others imply he survived.

Key people

• Pyrrhus of Epirus (319/318–272 BC): king of the Molossians and leader of the Epirote alliance, a restless and gifted general who also fought for the throne of Macedonia.
• Publius Decius Mus: consul in 279 BC, from a family famous for patriotic self-sacrifice.
• Publius Sulpicius Saverrio: his fellow consul, who shared command of the Roman army.

Consequences

Asculum did not change Rome’s mind. Instead, in 279 or 278 BC Rome and Carthage renewed their treaty with a clause against Pyrrhus. In 278 BC Pyrrhus accepted an invitation from the Greek cities of Sicily and spent three years fighting Carthage there, with early successes but no final result.

He returned to Italy in 276 BC and met the Romans again near Beneventum in 275 BC, where he was checked and withdrew. He sailed back to Epirus, leaving a garrison at Tarentum, which surrendered to Rome in 272 BC. Rome now controlled the whole Italian peninsula south of the Po valley, and within a decade it would face Carthage in the First Punic War.

Timeline

• 282 BC: Tarentum clashes with Rome over Roman ships in the Gulf of Taranto.
• 280 BC: Pyrrhus lands in Italy and defeats the Romans at Heraclea.
• 279 BC: Pyrrhus defeats the consuls Decius Mus and Sulpicius Saverrio at Asculum.
• 278 BC: Pyrrhus leaves Italy to campaign against Carthage in Sicily.
• 275 BC: Pyrrhus is checked near Beneventum and returns to Epirus.
• 272 BC: Pyrrhus dies at Argos; Tarentum surrenders to Rome.

Why it matters

Asculum showed that a brilliant general could beat Rome in the field and still lose the war, because Rome could absorb losses that its enemies could not. Hannibal would learn the same lesson half a century later. The battle also gave the world a lasting phrase for any success bought at too high a price.